Stages of Loneliness (4)

There is this strange dueling that goes on when you reach this stage of simultaneously feeling ready to date again, but also complete terror of even speaking to the opposite sex ever again.

Maybe that’s a little melodramatic. My landlord is a dude and I can speak to him just fine.

No, but seriously, it’s really scary. Especially if you take the time to do a bunch of emotional archeology and detect your flaws and examine them and change them or accept them. You start to feel like a big ball o’flaws. And you’re so out of practice. And there are so many better options out there. Why would anyone choose you?

And then you have those well-meaning friends who say that their cousin’s mother-in-law is married to a guy who married her even though she had seven kids and he treats her like a princess so I shouldn’t give up.

And then you have those other well-meaning friends who say that the only men who would want to date woman with three kids are clearly either pedophiles or gay men trying to appease their conservative parents, so I’d better invest in a good vibrator and a Costco pack of AA batteries because it’s the long dirt nap for my love life.

And then I think men my age who have never had kids or been married must be either a) perpetually frat-boying b) a reclusive gamer or c) not interested in having a wife and kids anyway. So I guess the pool is dry.

But this is where my unscientific study ends.

I do not know what is beyond Paralysis because I am, in fact, paralyzed.

I’d like to project that some sort of “Acceptance” is beyond this and I’ll be one of those people who just don’t care either way. Let’s all meditate on that because I could use an extra dose of peace of mind.